THE education ministry is to audit and replace defective hand-held metal detectors that were issued to high schools, as administrators try to keep deadly weapons out of the institutions.

A similar audit is being done for the 27 high schools that were given walk-through metal detectors, while another nine are being installed in selected schools.

Education Minister Fayval Williams advised the House of Representatives on Tuesday of the move in her contribution to the 2022/23 Sectoral Debate, as she lamented the upsurge in violence in schools upon the resumption of face-to-face classes.She noted that schools had resumed searching students on entry and randomly throughout the day, under guidance of a safety and security policy document.“The policy document describes what is a search and under what conditions you can have searches. Some schools will be getting CCTV surveillance system to improve school safety and security,” she explained.

Williams said the education ministry is also working with the police, who provide support to schools to conduct searches, to have more security presence in targeted spaces after school, such as transport centres.

She said, too, that the justice ministry has been training teachers, students and parents in restorative justice practices as a conflict management tool, while the Ministry of National Security was providing case management services to students, particularly those located within zones of special operations (ZOSOs).

Meanwhile, 55 additional school resource officers from the Jamaica Constabulary Force are also being deployed to schools in Trelawny, St James, Hanover, and Westmoreland.

Just last week, Jean Gough, regional director for United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), expressed unease with the emphasis on law enforcement interventions within schools. She was speaking on the issue at a forum hosted by the Jamaica Observer.

According to UNICEF statistics, prior to the novel coronavirus pandemic one in three students from certain institutions across the island was involved in a physical incident, and one out of three students was bullied.

“It may be good as a temporary measure but long term it may be something that we need to all review to make sure we are getting more community engagement in these issues, and self-regulation. We don’t believe in police in schools. We advocate for more community engagement with school security, [which] is one element, but they need more support from the soft side. We need to bring this better together — more work with families, more work with communities, and more work with schools. We need to close that circle better,” Gough stressed.UNICEF is rolling out a five-year programme to help support the rights of children in Jamaica, and reduce inequities.

Minister Williams said Tuesday that guidance counsellors, health and family life teachers, and the deans of discipline are collaborating to implement the psychosocial and socio-emotional learning activities, using a model that has been shared with schools.She noted that fourth-form students will be targeted in the first round of these activities because there is evidence that the pandemic has impacted this cohort the most.

“Since the resumption of full face-to-face classes this year, several of our high schools have come to national attention with fights and stabbings. Our current grade 10 (fourth form) would have missed approximately one third of their second year, which was grade 8 (second form) during September 2019 to June 2020,” she said, stressing that these students had missed all of their third year in high school (September 2020 to June 2021), and have also missed about half of their fourth-form year.

The education minister pointed out that the typical grade 10 student is just entering adolescence: “This is also an important time to prepare for more independence and responsibility, especially for our boys, and it is scary.”She emphasised that the ministry recognises the need for “heavy duty” psychosocial support that will help students to manage their emotions and resolve conflicts without violence.